Gardening Frustrations__ The season of the Varmint

[Owly055]

My attempts at gardening have not been very successful this year. I hadn't gardened for quite a few years, and rather than tilling the soil, I decided to do raised beds using potting soil from the local Ace Hardware and another store.......... Big mistake!! Some of the potting soil would not grow anything, some would, and I didn't document which was good and which was poisoned. I'm assuming "urban compost" that had yard chemicals had been used in the manufacture was incorporated in the potting soil, but it clearly was toxic. Peas would come up and just refuse to grow, or wilt, for example. I'll never use commercial potting soil again.
To further complicate matters, I had population explosions of cottontails, raccoons, and skunks. In the last 2 weeks I've shot 8 each of skunks and coons, three coons just last night, and either shot or trapped 14 cotton tails. My neighbor is wondering about all the gun shots from my yard, often in the middle of the night. Last night sounded like a small war at 3:30 AM. I live in a small rural town with a current population of 3, and gun shots in town are not cause for alarm, we all own firearms and all are careful with them. One neighbor even has a very large yard with a shooting bench and a gravel pile at the far end of his very long yard. A few months back were were shooting his 50 Barret back there. ( 50 caliber machine gun round). I've taken to setting up a live trap, two connibear traps, and a couple of "dog proof" coon traps. I've never seen this many varmints move into town. Anybody want some skunks or coons for pets ;-)........

H.W.

 

[Stillraining]

Hey Owly...I can't say we have any where near that level of problems with critters, The Rabbits dont even jump up into our raised beds ( Knock On Wood) and we have quite a few rabbits, Coyotes and raccoons. Maybe our garden tastes like crap!??

But I had the exact same problem with purchased soil.. In my case it was 30 cubic yards of the stuff. I agree it was either poisoned or road salt soil one of the two as we had a dickens of a time growing much of anything last year, but after a whole winters wort of rain flushing it and mixing in 20+ large Lowes bags of bought bagged potting soil and stear manure we have a much better garden this year. Still some signs of issues in a few areas. I'm mixing in all my spent brewing grains now as well when I can find room to add to organics.

So I cant comment on the bagged stuff you bought. The 30 Cy's I bought was from a large local recycler and they dont care what they mix together Im finding out.

 

[JonM]

F-ing rabbits, man. One gnawed half of a beefsteak tomato off last night and was eyeballing the peppers.

I'm right in the middle of a typical density suburb with a very large active park across the street, so a .22 or even a BB gun are out of the question. People would probably see and flip out if I threw a rock at one of the rabbits (brazen little bastards get close enough for me to do it, too. They eat well so I'm sure they'd be tasty.)

We're dogsitting next week, so maybe that'll discourage them.

 

[Stillraining]

F-ing rabbits, man. One gnawed half of a beefsteak tomato off last night and was eyeballing the peppers.

I'm right in the middle of a typical density suburb with a very large active park across the street, so a .22 or even a BB gun are out of the question. People would probably see and flip out if I threw a rock at one of the rabbits (brazen little bastards get close enough for me to do it, too. They eat well so I'm sure they'd be tasty.)

We're dogsitting next week, so maybe that'll discourage them.

Archery or wrist rocket practice perhaps?

 

[BargainFittings]

Archery or wrist rocket practice perhaps?

Blow gun. But better be a perfect shot

 

[Peruvian802]

Have you tried coyote piss, fish emulsion, or other repellents?

 

[BSquaredBrewing]

I'm with ya. The damn rabbits have eaten all my plans (jalapenos, green peppers, marigolds, aloha berries) but two of my tomato plants. I'm beyond pissed. The rabbit and deer repellent worked for a few weeks, but now they figured out there's no predators nearby. I let my dog out when I see them in the yard and she chases them out. She's super quick and has nearly gotten them a few times. We just moved and my BB guns are at my mom's house, so they are going to get it as soon as I can get my hands on my BB guns. I'm building an enclosure next year. Good luck!

 

[Zuljin]

We've rabbits and opossums here in the burbs. They've eaten the cantaloupes out to hollow shells. Rats, too. Man. The rats.

I hate buying dirt, but I do. Either compost or composted cow manure from Lowe's or Ace.

 

[Owly055]

I've not had deer issues yet this year, but there is a solution for that I invented many years ago. Buy an ordinary motion detector light. Screw an outlet adapter into one socket. Then find an old washing machine valve...... they are a dime a dozen at appliance repair places if they have any junk machines laying about and will let you rob one. Set a couple of rain bird sprinklers on posts in the garden, and wire the works up so the sprinklers come on when the motion detector trips.
I did that for years with good luck, until a couple of really aggressive does discovered that it didn't work during the day. I taped over the electric eye that prevents it from working during the day, but the units are thermal sensing and during the day there are too many heat signatures, even the sun warming the back fence will turn it on ;-( I finally just shot the two problem deer and dragged the carcasses out into the woods. It's legal to shoot deer in your garden or haystack here, but illegal to move them. You are supposed to call F&G and let them haul them off, and then they pressure you to put up a huge fence, even to the extent of providing materials. SSS is the rule we live by here.

H.W.

 

[Owly055]

Oh..... I forgot to tell a great story about devices I designed to repel deer. I had a problem in the fall when the deer would gobble down my raspberry canes and paw out my strawberry roots and eat them. There's plenty of other stuff to eat, but they seem to like them. As it was freezing at night, I couldn't use my sprinkler system to repel them, so I took a squirrel cage fan I purchased from Surplus Center, and mounted it to the bottom of a 5 gallon plastic bucket so it blew up into the bucket. I then wired it to the motion detector, and set the assembly on top of 3 old tires so the fan was off the ground and the open end of the plastic bucket pointing upward. I then duct taped the largest green plastic garbage bag to the top of the bucket that I could find. The deer would come into the garden and the fan would come on and this huge green thing would inflate and quiver. It actually worked quite well....... UNTIL....

One night I was in town at the local watering hole 20 miles away, and my neighbor came through my yard with a 12 gauge chasing a skunk. When the bag inflated, the result was predictable. I don't know what he thought it was, but he killed it!! It took him a week or so to work up the courage to confess. That was about 20 years ago, and that neighbor and his 12 gauge are long gone.

H.W.

 

[unionrdr]

We have rabbits & starlings. scads of friggin' starlings. they wait for the baby plants to poke through the ground, then snip them off to feed their young the bugs they can see inside the stems. Dumb little ****s, they're too young to have bugs burrowing up the stems yet! They & the rabbits decimate my garden as soon as they poke through the ground. Wish I had a .22 revolver & some CB caps. All you here is the snap of the trigger. Rabbit for dinner & fur slippers!...hackles from the starlings for flies & streamers.

 

[Owly055]

I'm working on "diabolitry". Is that a word? So far I've put "paid in full" to the accounts of 6 racoons. My borrowed Connibear trap has killed 3 very large coons, but I hate using it due to the risk of killing dogs and cats....... though most of those would be no real loss, and one dog I would love to see stick his head in my connibear!!
The real total is 11 racoons and 8 skunks...... some of the coons were across the street. It's an infestation bar none!!

I have on order, a pair of infrared transmitters & receivers, and plan to build an electronic trap. Instead of a bait pan and a trigger mechanism, it will use a "break beam" system and a solenoid. The trap will be 24" square, and 60" long, and use a "guillotine" door instead of an angled door. It of course will NOT be sharp..... I'm not interested in chopping off tails, etc. A company called Nashville Wire makes wire shelving for Walmart and Lowes, and I plan to use their product (from Zoro.com) to build the cage. 24x24x60.

Using "technology" against raccoons just makes sense when faced with an invasion. A political figure for whom I have nothing but the deepest contempt recent posed the question "why can't we use nuclear weapons". An excellent question and one that needed to be asked. The answer is obvious to all intelligent humans..... and surely to him as well, unless he's far more stupid than I would like to imagine!!
This isn't "Caddy Shack" with Bill Murray. I'm not using explosives. I'm used to winning... We humans after all are the most dangerous predator on earth. In the old days people would sit up all night, or whatever it took. Today I can use technology and get some sleep. Last night I woke up the sound of thrashing around, and stepped outside to see a large boar coon doing the danse macabre. The connibear is a great tool, but totally indiscriminate. Dog, Cat, Coon, Skunk. I want a live trap so I can "play god"

H.W.

 

[JonM]

 

[Homercidal]

Lay out some good old-fashioned snares made with natural materials!

Or build a snare that attaches to the critter and has bells. Then when they make it back to the buddies, their buddies all laugh at them! "Ha ha! You have beels on! What a wanker!"

Or, they make some live traps that aren't very expensive and don't need to be built. Hav-a-heart is a brand I've used since I was a young boy at my grandpas' house catching chipmunks, squirrels, crows, blackbirds, skunks, etc. I really only wanted chipmunks, but you don't get to pick and choose with them.

 

[user 224599]

String old compact disks or cheap blanks across the garden - Spinning in the wind they flash like a nightmare mobile and keep at least birds away during daylight hours.

 

[Owly055]

Lay out some good old-fashioned snares made with natural materials!

Or build a snare that attaches to the critter and has bells. Then when they make it back to the buddies, their buddies all laugh at them! "Ha ha! You have beels on! What a wanker!"

Or, they make some live traps that aren't very expensive and don't need to be built. Hav-a-heart is a brand I've used since I was a young boy at my grandpas' house catching chipmunks, squirrels, crows, blackbirds, skunks, etc. I really only wanted chipmunks, but you don't get to pick and choose with them.

Snares are not known to work well on coons.

A friend of mine, long ago when he was in his teens... he's 80 now was trying to solve the problem of deer spoiling haystacks. They stacked loose hay then, and the deer would get into the stack, and make a path to the top. They seem to prefer to stand on top and piss and crap on the hay as they eat it for some reason. First he took a wind up alarm clock and attached a disk to the alarm winder, with sandpaper on it, and rigged a match and a string of firecrackers, and set the alarm for midnight. It worked and created quite a riot, but a boy only has access to so many firecrackers ;-( in a perfect world we would have an unlimited supply of things like firecrackers and ammo.
Next he found an old coyote trap in the shed, and attached it to a piece of small cable threaded through a bunch of tin cans.... a string of about 20 cans..... of course they were the steel cans in those days. He buried the trap under a light covering of hay in the path. Of course a deer stepped in it, and ended up forever dragging a string of tin cans behind him. He'd run to catch up with his buddies, and they would run away from him. For many months after, he would occasionally catch a glimpse of this scenario.

Last night for the first time in a few months, none of the bait was stolen from any of my traps, and no traps tripped. I scatter some bait around the traps, and it was all still there. I wonder if I got the last of the coons local to my yard?? There of course will be more.


H.W.

 

[VApatriot]

For years we had problems with critters getting our veggies in our gardens before we could. That all ended when I bought two of these 'Versanets' and the 'Patriot 5' energizer. We haven't lost a single tomato or other veggie since. My wife has quite the green thumb. Last year in one of our 4' x 8' raised bed gardens she harvested over 80lbs of heirloom tomatoes only because the coons couldn't get at them. Best investment I've ever made for our gardens. Highly recommend!

https://www.premier1supplies.com/p/versanet-plus-9-20-3-electric-netting

https://www.premier1supplies.com/p/patriot-p5-energizer?cat_id=170

 

[JonM]

When I was a kid, I lived in a neighborhood with pretty modest sized lots. The neighbors (he was a retired US Army Colonel who served in the Pacific in WWII) had a beautiful garden with flowers, veggies, fruit trees, you name it. After he died and the wife went to a nursing home, one of their adult children moved into the house. My mom commented one day that she was seeing lots of foxes in the yard. The new neighbor said something to the effect of "Oh, Dad sat out here every day perfectly motionless until he saw a rabbit. He'd then slooooowly move his .22 into position [did I mention this is the closely-packed 'burbs?] and shoot the rabbits. With him gone, there are more rabbits, which leads to more foxes to eat the rabbits."

 

[unionrdr]

That sounds like Sharon's grandpa's back yard in Lakewood, on the opposite end of Winchester Avenue where we all lived when we were both born. I need to break out this old Remington semi-auto .22 pop gave me with factory peep sights. It was built from 1935-1947. With wood stock, long barrel & 5-shot clip. I like how, on the receiver, it says, " smokeless greased only"! You can drive nails with those sights out to about 110yds with the long rifle cartridges it needs! I could get a lot of rabbits around here, a couple does occasionally.:rockin:...now, there's no way I could use the newer version, the Mohawk 10C. Plastic stock & short barrel. Damn thing sounds like a 30-06 going off, especially around our trees & the ravine out back. I call it my Matty Mattel...

 

[Owly055]

That sounds like Sharon's grandpa's back yard in Lakewood, on the opposite end of Winchester Avenue where we all lived when we were both born. I need to break out this old Remington semi-auto .22 pop gave me with factory peep sights. It was built from 1935-1947. With wood stock, long barrel & 5-shot clip. I like how, on the receiver, it says, " smokeless greased only"! You can drive nails with those sights out to about 110yds with the long rifle cartridges it needs! I could get a lot of rabbits around here, a couple does occasionally.:rockin:...now, there's no way I could use the newer version, the Mohawk 10C. Plastic stock & short barrel. Damn thing sounds like a 30-06 going off, especially around our trees & the ravine out back. I call it my Matty Mattel...

I have a Gamo single pump .177 caliber air rifle that is death on rabbits or anything else. At 1250 FPS, it packs quite a wallop. Same muzzle velocity as a 22 but a lot smaller round of course. It's very very accurate. Fortunately I don't have any "bleeding heart" neighbors here. With a population of 3, we are all "country people" and understand the need to thin out the population of varmints.

H.W.

 

[Owly055]

Thanks for the links.......... I hate putting up fences around my garden.......but it's a failed garden this year anyway due to the toxic potting soil........ I won't make that mistake again!!
Years ago I was having problems with robins in my strawberries......... I don't have strawberries anymore. I set up "electric roots" after seeing that they would roost on the fence, then fly down and walk into the garden. I just placed two electric fence wires in very close proximity on top of the fence where they liked to roost.... a pos and a neg. They would land, and inevitably put one foot on each wire. The surprised squawk was priceless ;-).............. Unfortunately they soon learned just to fly down in the lawn. I then placed network of low wires next to the strawberry plants so they couldn't walk into the garden without hitting one. That was reasonably effective. Ultimately I built a device from a very very small motor and gearbox from Surplus Center mounted to a stand, with an aluminum beam mounted to it rotated around at a rate of about two RPM. I had strings with tin can lids dangling down low enough to nearly brush the plants. As one arm would pass over every 15 seconds, they could never get in and choose the strawberry they wanted and drill a "robin hole" in it before being hit, and soon gave up. I had a Sherridan air rifle at the time, but didn't want to kill robins...... rabbits, skunks, and coons yes..... robins no.

H.W.

For years we had problems with critters getting our veggies in our gardens before we could. That all ended when I bought two of these 'Versanets' and the 'Patriot 5' energizer. We haven't lost a single tomato or other veggie since. My wife has quite the green thumb. Last year in one of our 4' x 8' raised bed gardens she harvested over 80lbs of heirloom tomatoes only because the coons couldn't get at them. Best investment I've ever made for our gardens. Highly recommend!

https://www.premier1supplies.com/p/versanet-plus-9-20-3-electric-netting

https://www.premier1supplies.com/p/patriot-p5-energizer?cat_id=170

 

[unionrdr]

I still have the original Crossman 760 pump .177 cal air rifle, but it needs a new pump piston. I used to hunt rabbits with it. I'd like to get some of the German conical pellets for it. That'd be great to use around here. I wonder if Starlings would make a good pie. Medieval thing, but might be good?

 

[Homercidal]

Starlings would be fine for pie. It would take a few is all.

 

[unionrdr]

SWMBO didn't like my idea of getting a new pump piston/seal for the Power master 760 & some of those German conical .177 cal pellets. Lots of rabbits & them dang starlings to eat. Then make moccasins outta the tanned fur-on hides!

 

[Homercidal]

Seems like a small thing. I have about 4-5 BB guns of different types. Nothing *really* nice, but one or two will take care of a small bird no problem.

As long as the starlings don't bother building nests in my roof, I don't bother them.

 

[unionrdr]

Well, we have several pin oaks on the property, including near the garden space in back. Darn things even got into downstairs bathroom vent pipe! But they snip off the baby plants as soon as they come up. Darn rabbits have bolt holes nearby...I think in the ravine that drains into trench on I90? With the German conicals, it'd be something like hunting with an air-powered 17 bee? Need to do some varmint huntin'!:rockin:

 

[Owly055]

I don't believe in "repellents"......... only "killents". When there is a population explosion, you kill off the surplus, it's as simple as that. I've you don't, the problem multiplies and they are into everything. If you have one or two, a repellent may be fine. So far the death toll is 25. 9 skunks and 16 raccoons. It's slowed down a bit finally, but I still have a big bastard getting into my trap....... and out again. I don't plan to quit until they quit taking the bait.

H.W.

Have you tried coyote piss, fish emulsion, or other repellents?

 

[kpr121]

Here's some satisfaction... one less groundhog in the garden! Video cuts out right before the trap set, but believe me I got him, he is in groundhog heaven now. Now to get after his big brother....

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAmmhmtIuzo[/ame]

 

[kpr121]

Oh here is some pics of rest of garden:

 

[Peruvian802]

I don't believe in "repellents"......... only "killents". When there is a population explosion, you kill off the surplus, it's as simple as that. I've you don't, the problem multiplies and they are into everything. If you have one or two, a repellent may be fine. So far the death toll is 25. 9 skunks and 16 raccoons. It's slowed down a bit finally, but I still have a big bastard getting into my trap....... and out again. I don't plan to quit until they quit taking the bait.

H.W.

Word. My .22 and 20g are all I need to keep out the buggers.

A dog with a big bark helps too.

 

[fpweeks]

I had a major problem with chipmunks this year........killed 26 of them in a week with a "death bucket"

 

[Owly055]

Oh here is some pics of rest of garden:

Beautiful garden!!

 

[TX_Brewing]

I had a major problem with chipmunks this year........killed 26 of them in a week with a "death bucket"

What is this "death bucket" of which you speak?

 

[kpr121]

Beautiful garden!!

Thanks... We built the fence this year but were too lazy (and excited to start planting) to chicken wire the bottom. Hence our groundhog dilemma.

It's 12x24 and we are already kicking ourselves for not making it bigger. I think next year we are going to do some veggies along the outside (maybe corn, pumpkin, some potted herbs, etc) to give us a little more room inside.

 

[smurfjuice]

If you use chicken wire, i would trench around the fence first and bury the
bottom of the wire or they just dig right under the fence.

 

[unionrdr]

I've even seen people pound stakes around the perimeter a couple inches apart & a foot deep to keep critters from tunneling.

 

[kpr121]

Yea we plan to put a planting bed around the entire fence so the chicken wire will be dug in about a foot down and folded/laid outward.

Got a bunny and another groundhog on camera the past two days but neither stepped into the trap. Bunny (I think) took the tops off of all my parsley....

 

[unionrdr]

Then he should taste pretty good when you get'em?:rockin:

 

[unionrdr]

I was watching videos on YouTube, & stumbled onto modern air rifle vids. I came to wonder how well my old Crossman 760 Powermaster stacks up against these Modern Crossman PCP rifles? Anyone know off-hand? Like to use an air rifle for these damned starlings & rabbits.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

I have an issue with Rats in my yard, and they've tried eating my Serrano peppers and hops so far. They are burrowing under my garage, wrecking my landscaping, and running a muck everywhere.

I set some bait stations a while back, which didn't work until just this past week for some reason. Saturday morning I found 4.5 dead ones.

The ".5" was in it's final hours, but needed a nudge. Enter: Shovel blade. And it squealed with each jab.